Monday, December 24, 2012
319 - Shopping for Innocence
Spirituality Column #319
Shopping for Innocence
By Bob Walters
Two carefree, local elementary school students happily hopped off a Friday afternoon school bus recently and their tearful mother fairly rushed the curb, hugging the bewildered children tightly and kissing them furiously.
Viewing the scene through my windshield and having been listening to the radio, I knew something the startled children didn’t: that their mother’s heart had melted-down with that day’s news of the Sandy Hook K-4 elementary school shootings in Newtown, Conn.
The bus’s red flashing stop arms held the moment: the mother’s children were safe; their world is not. Not even at Christmas.
I caught the mother’s eye, nodded and touched my hand to my heart, a knowing, sincere salute to her fierce love and to the beautiful innocence of her children. Emotion and tears came easily. Is there any time of year when a child’s innocence is more valued and celebrated?
If we are selfish and frivolous, we will dwell on the inconvenience of this tragedy so close to “our” Christmas. If we are circumspect and serious, we will add God’s message of Jesus Christ to our calculus of assessing both this tragedy and the holiday’s true significance.
We want Christmas to be gentle, but for God to be powerful and tough. We want God to stop the bad guys. We want him to protect us along with the people and things we love. If Jesus was sent as God’s servant, then we want Him to serve us … now.
Ironically, our macro-culture is too modern and educated to believe all that religious nonsense, yet privately we are too desperate and confused to entirely discount God. We shop for God “on sale” – on better terms for us with less at stake. We eject God from our public midst but blame God for our troubles. We opine, “God wouldn’t let this happen.” Then we demand, “Well God, I’m waiting. Fix this mess.”
We don’t know who is surrendering to Whom.
This Christmas my thoughts go to King Herod (Matthew 2). He tried to kill Jesus but instead killed every other baby boy in Bethlehem. Baby Jesus born in that Bethlehem manger is the innocence and righteousness that God truly desires for mankind, once the perfect image of His Creation but now fallen in sin.
Sadly, the innocent and the righteous are not protected from the fallen world’s viciousness and violence; look at what happened to Jesus on the Cross. We are shocked at Newtown, but evil is nothing new.
It’s no wonder that we hug our innocent children tightly.
Oh, for a world where we hug Jesus even tighter than that.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) prays along with so many others for peace, mercy, comfort … and truth. Have a merry and gentle Chistmas.
December 25, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield –
Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
Shopping for Innocence
By Bob Walters
Two carefree, local elementary school students happily hopped off a Friday afternoon school bus recently and their tearful mother fairly rushed the curb, hugging the bewildered children tightly and kissing them furiously.
Viewing the scene through my windshield and having been listening to the radio, I knew something the startled children didn’t: that their mother’s heart had melted-down with that day’s news of the Sandy Hook K-4 elementary school shootings in Newtown, Conn.
The bus’s red flashing stop arms held the moment: the mother’s children were safe; their world is not. Not even at Christmas.
I caught the mother’s eye, nodded and touched my hand to my heart, a knowing, sincere salute to her fierce love and to the beautiful innocence of her children. Emotion and tears came easily. Is there any time of year when a child’s innocence is more valued and celebrated?
If we are selfish and frivolous, we will dwell on the inconvenience of this tragedy so close to “our” Christmas. If we are circumspect and serious, we will add God’s message of Jesus Christ to our calculus of assessing both this tragedy and the holiday’s true significance.
We want Christmas to be gentle, but for God to be powerful and tough. We want God to stop the bad guys. We want him to protect us along with the people and things we love. If Jesus was sent as God’s servant, then we want Him to serve us … now.
Ironically, our macro-culture is too modern and educated to believe all that religious nonsense, yet privately we are too desperate and confused to entirely discount God. We shop for God “on sale” – on better terms for us with less at stake. We eject God from our public midst but blame God for our troubles. We opine, “God wouldn’t let this happen.” Then we demand, “Well God, I’m waiting. Fix this mess.”
We don’t know who is surrendering to Whom.
This Christmas my thoughts go to King Herod (Matthew 2). He tried to kill Jesus but instead killed every other baby boy in Bethlehem. Baby Jesus born in that Bethlehem manger is the innocence and righteousness that God truly desires for mankind, once the perfect image of His Creation but now fallen in sin.
Sadly, the innocent and the righteous are not protected from the fallen world’s viciousness and violence; look at what happened to Jesus on the Cross. We are shocked at Newtown, but evil is nothing new.
It’s no wonder that we hug our innocent children tightly.
Oh, for a world where we hug Jesus even tighter than that.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) prays along with so many others for peace, mercy, comfort … and truth. Have a merry and gentle Chistmas.
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